Other than the Lithuanian President’s decision last month not to grant citizenship to ice dancer Katherine Copely, things have been rather quiet on the citizenship front. However, this week, there is some news.

Incorporating appeals to the Constitutional Court (Konstitucinis Teismas), the new project would try to develop a plan regarding dual citizenship that avoids a legal limbo while waiting for it to be declared unconstitutional. The main hangup of the current project is in part 7.5 of the proposed law on citizenship, which declares that a Lithuanian citizen can maintain her citizenship if she

A person’s rights cannot be infringed upon, nor can a person be granted privileges based on his or her sex, race, ethnicity, language, descent, social standing, religion, creed, or beliefs.

Considering that the Court already struck down similar language when dual citizenship became an issue in the first place, I’m not sure why they would change their minds this time. At that time, they decided that the “tauta” to whom belongs the “suvernitetas,” as prescribed in the opening articles of the Lithuanian Constitution, is backformed from the population of citizens, making a tautology between citizenship and “tautybė.” It seems to me that following this logic, the article in the proposed law above could be kept, but it would mean “a Lithuanian citizen who left Lithuania…” In that case, it fails the rareness test for dual citizenship as prescribed in the Constitution. Getting rid of it, however, would also erase the crypto-racist effect that diaspora communities are seeking: dual citizenship only for ethnic Lithuanians, not for Russians, Jews, Poles, etc.

1. Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.

I currently fit into the category where I would have to renounce my South African citizenship to get the Lithuanian one.

It seems to make sense to wait until the changes are announced in July 2010. Am I right in understanding that the trend seems to be towards extending dual citizenship in the case of those who left before 1940 as well? Or am I misunderstanding this?

My one fear is that if I wait till July 2010, the rights to ancestral citizenship would be taken away completely. Any chance of this in your opinion? That would mean getting applications in pronto…but then have to give up S.A passport, which is undesirable.

I honestly don’t have any sort of insider information, nor do I particularly feel like I can gauge trends. I do feel, however, that the Lithuanian government is trying to figure out how to make dual citizenship available to more, rather than to fewer, people. They are under tremendous pressure from Lithuanians living abroad–this has turned PLB almost into a single-issue organization!

But while that may sound like good news, what is keeping the pressure from throwing the doors of dual citizenship wide open is precisely the business I called “crypto-racist” above. I do believe that the same sources of pressure to open dual citizenship to people who have acquired citizenship in a NATO nation are also sources that are disinclined to advocate for the rights of descendents of citizens who left before 1940–that is to say, they might not advocate for, as an example, the descendents of Jewish citizens who fled the increasingly toxic atmosphere in late Smetona-era Lithuania.

In other words, because the current efforts to widen dual citizenship are done in an effort to maintain the ethnic Lithuanian hegemony over the state, means of widening the citizenship to increase the likelihood of non-ethnic Lithuanians’ gaining dual citizenship seem to find less favor in the halls of power.

So whether your specific family is ethnically Lithuanian or not, because pulling the clock back to 1918 would dilute the concentration of ethnic Lithuanians in the pool of eligible dual citizens, your chances seem slim for the forseeable future.

That’s how I read the pressure for changing the dual citizenship law when I try to read between the lines.

My family I suppose, fits into the crypto-racist category you speak of.

Something is not so clear to me though: I thought from the articles I have read that the extension of dual citizenship that is in debate, surrounds the topic of pulling the clock back to include pre-1940 immigrants.

Is this not the actual issue in question?

Hope this is not one of those frustrating questions already answered somewhere…

Hmmmmm, just to clarify my previous entry, …It was on another site , linked through from this site that I got the impression pre-1940 immigrants are being considered for inclusion re: dual citizenship.

Have you caught wind that this possibility is under consideration at all?

Or is it actually the post 1990 immigrants that are mainly being considered for inclusion at this point in the political debate?

OK, I think this is confusion I’ve started. *I* *personally* *wish* that the clock would be pulled back, but, from what I can recall, I’ve not read anything suggesting that, at least for dual citizenship. Of course, as you know, the clock has already been pulled back for single citizenship.

The bulk of the pressure now is to allow people who left *since* 1990 to keep their Lithuanian citizenship. That’s why requirements like “NATO nation” and “EU nation” keep coming up, as they are both sets of states that Lithuanians have been emigrating to since 1990.

Given that the current law considers as citizens everyone who is a descendant of a citizen of the first republic, it would follow that that should make up the pool of potential candidates for dual citizenship, even though that would go against the “rare” requirement in the constitution (as would, I would argue, expanding it in the other direction). So while it would make sense, and while it would be what I want, I’ve not actually, from what little I’ve read, seen anything suggesting that it will.

Glad to have found this site. Both parents born in Lithuania (father – 1914,near Panevezys, and mother, 1926, near Vilkaviskis. Both left in 1944 as the Russians were coming through..land taken, uncle deported to Kariganda, Kazakhstan..Met in England and married..brother born in Germany…Then siste and I born in Canada. All became US citizens years ago. Brother now lives in Vilnius and obtained dual citizenship in the mid-late ’90s..been there 15+ years. I have been back several times for conferences..I am now 50 and really would like to have my Lithuanian and US citizenship..

My father was born in Lietuva in Panevezys along with my paternal grandparents. What right or possibilites do I have under Lithuanian citizenship laws to obtain dual citizenship . I was born in Cikagoje,Illinois.JAV. 1961. My birth certificate states my fathers place of birth /origin as Panevezys ,Lietuva. Any informtation would quite helpful
Labai Aciu Draugai
Su pagarba
Danielius